Barefoot Bloggers: Real Spaghetti and Meatballs

It seems ironic, in an admittedly Alanis-Morrisette-kind-of-way, that after having spent a week waxing poetic about the glories of non-traditional meatballs and straight-up dissing standard Italian-American spaghetti and meatballs, the first of this month's Barefoot Bloggers challenges would be just that. Touche, fate. You win this time.

Really, there is absolutely nothing wrong with basic spaghetti and meatballs, at least not when they are made right. I've certainly enjoyed quite a few plates in my time. There's just something homey and comforting about this dish that I think makes everyone feel just a little bit childlike at heart, no matter what their age. As Ina would say, how bad can that be?

And so, I will admit to approaching this recipe with quite a bit of excitement. Any excuse to eat pasta and red sauce is a-ok with me, and when you start throwing ground meat around too? Sign me up.

Super Meatball Scooping Action Shot! Just want to insert here that of all the invaluable tips and tricks I've picked up from the great Alton Brown, using an ice cream scoop (or disher, as he calls it) to evenly portion out things like meatballs, muffin batter, and really anything other than ice cream, is one of my favorites. Probably a close second to brining just about any meat that isn't beef before cooking. You're my hero AB!

As usual, I made a few small changes to Ina's recipe. For the meatballs, Ina calls for a 4-1 ratio of fresh white bread crumbs and dried seasoned breadcrumbs to be added to the meat mix; I didn't realize until the night I made this that I was out of dry bread crumbs, so I just used extra fresh crumbs and tossed in a bunch of dry italian spices (granulated garlic and onion, some parsley and oregano) to compensate for the missing seasoning. I also soaked my breadcrumbs in a bit of milk for 10 minutes, then pulsed them in the food processor with the egg to make sort of a paste which I then added to the meat mix. I can't remember where I picked up this trick, but it invariably creates a more moist, tender meatball with none of the mealiness that you sometimes get with just ground meat and dry breadcrumbs. I just really like the texture when they're made this way. It also saves me from having to remove the crust from my bread, which would have been particularly difficult considering I made my crumbs from a soft semolina roll rather than slices of white sandwich bread.

Mmm, golden brown deliciousness.

I also adjusted the basic meat proportions, using an even 1-1-1 ratio of beef, pork, and veal, where Ina called for twice as much beef as pork and veal. I'm pretty sure I had just under a pound of each, because that just happened to be the size of the pre-packed meatloaf mix they were selling at the grocery store. Don't worry, the finished meatballs were still sufficiently beefy.



The sauce recipe that Ina pairs with the meatballs seemed a little boring, so I amped it up a little with some fresh torn basil leaves and a handful of chopped sundried tomatoes for sweetness. I also pureed the sauce with my stick blender after cooking, because I prefer a smooth sauce with long noodles - chunky sauces, in my world, are relegated to short cuts of pasta like penne, gemelli, or rotini.

Finally, I used some fresh linguine in place of the usual dry spaghetti, mostly because I'd bought some on a whim at this great natural/organic market that we discovered on the weekend's trip to Huntington. I used the cooked pasta to create sort of a nest on each plate, perched three steaming hot meatballs on top, and finished with a ladle of sauce and a generous grating of parmesan.



All in all, I have to say that this was pretty much what I want and expect from a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. The flavors weren't terribly complex or exciting, but they WERE delicious. The bread-milk-egg slurry in the meatballs did its job well, as they were indeed moist and tender and not the least bit mealy. Next time I would make them a bit smaller, as Ina's 2" round specimens didn't quite cook all the way through in the time indicated. The sauce was certainly not the best I've ever had, but it served its purpose and paired quite well with the richly-flavored meatballs and salty parmesan. It was a bit too thick for my tastes, even after blending, and I wish I'd thinned it out with some beef stock and tomato juice or puree afterwards.



Oddly enough, the only real off note in the meal was the pasta - I just wasn't thrilled with it. This particular brand had a strange aftertaste that I found unpleasant, and I had to be sure to have a little bit of sauce and meat on every bite of pasta to cover it up. The texture was perfect, as is usually the case with fresh pasta, but I would never be able to eat this pasta with anything less than a robust sauce or ragu, so I don't think its worth the money. I'll just have to try another brand, or (gasp!) finally get around to making some myself.

Ooh, you saucy noodles you.

In the end, though, I really enjoyed this. On a cold and gray winter Monday, after a long day of work, a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs was more than welcome. The meal was warm and soothing and evoked more than a little bit of nostalgia for my childhood, and I know I was smiling a little on the inside as I ate.

The best part is that we now have a big tupperware container of meatballs and sauce in the freezer. (Even making the meatballs large, I must have gotten around 16 meatballs out of my mix, and since J and I only ate 3 apiece, that left a LOT of leftovers.) So someday soon, when we have another cold and dreary day, I can take them out and fix up the sauce to get it just right, and serve it over some better pasta, and we'll have yet another spaghetti and meatballs dinner that'll be even better than the first.

Thanks to BMK of Reservations Not Required for this great recipe selection!

In Photos: "Cutting Board Meals"

We originally made this meal last month as an entry for the Barefoot Bloggers' Bonus Recipe Challenge for January - Cheese Platters. However, I never got on the ball enough to post it in time to submit it to the group, so I've just been sitting on the photos ever since. However, I decided to share them with you as an example of one of our favorite types of meals to make on a weeknight. We call them "cutting board meals".

Similar to an Italian antipasto, our cutting board meals always involve a couple varieties of cheese, usually one or two types of cured meat, some bread, and a few types of veggies, occasionally with a dip or spread depending on what components we've chosen. These meals are fantastic because they're lightening fast to make (usually involving no more work than some slicing and possible blanching of veggies) and can be adapted to any culinary ethnicity you like (Asian, Italian, Indian, Mexican, and Spanish cuisines work especially well here). Plus, they're fun to eat. We'll sit for maybe an hour or so, leisurely picking a bite at a time, playing with combinations of ingredients, trying to find the best all around bite out of what we've assembled. It's interactive and relaxing, and a nice change from our usual modus operandi of spending over an hour in the kitchen for a meal that only takes 15 minutes to eat.



This meal was sort of an antipasto with an identity crisis, comprised of two cheeses (Jarlsburg swiss and Prima Donna), two sausages (sweet soppresetta and a really fantastic spicy salami with fennel), roasted red peppers, quickly blanched sugar snap peas, roasted garlic ciabatta, and for a fun twist, some baked brie in puff pastry with pecans and raspberry-champagne preserves. It was delicious.

How would you make a cutting board meal? Give it a try!

Negimaki - Beef & Scallion Rolls

One of the reasons I love Japanese food as much as I do is its inherent simplicity. Most of my favorite dishes call for just a handful of ingredients, and achieve their delicious success through the perfect balance of salty, savory, sweet and tangy. Negimaki, the much-loved staple of most Japanese restaurant appetizer menus, certainly falls into this category.



We recently decided to try making these tasty beef and scallion rolls at home using a bit of surplus beef roast from our Sunday dinner. I didn't look at a recipe, but just trusted my instincts and my previous experience with restaurant negimaki to put these together. Overall, they were pretty darn good, but I know some things I would do differently next time.

First of all, I'd use a more tender cut of meat, and try harder to get each slice to an even thickness - J and I both took a turn with the knife, but neither of us were able to get good, clean slices. It would probably also help to be cutting the slices off of a full roast, rather than the small piece we reserved. I'd marinate both the beef and the scallions in some soy sauce and sesame oil, and possibly just a bit of sugar, before rolling. And I would cut the scallions to fit the width of each piece of beef, rather than cutting them into uniformly-sized lengths and then piecing everything together on the roll.

For now though, here is my recipe. Feel free to try it as written, since they were quite tasty, or make your own adjustments. Just remember - keep it simple!



Negimaki - Beef & Scallion Rolls
4-6 slices of beef, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4x6", cut or pounded to 1/16" thickness (you could always simply ask your butcher to cut some beef scallopine style, if you don't want to mess with this yourself)
1 bunch of scallions
salt
black pepper
sesame seeds
toasted sesame oil
soy sauce

Condiments - sweet asian-style chili sauce, wasabi, soy sauce, , sriracha, teriyaki sauce

Trim the ends of the scallions, then quarter lengthwise to get something that resembles long blades of grass. Now cut them into approximately 2" lengths. Divide equally into as many portions as you have slices of beef.

Lay a slice of beef out on a clean plate or board with one of the shorter sides closest to you and season lightly with salt, freshly-cracked black pepper, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Place one of your portions of scallions on top of the beef, about 1" in from the narrow edge closest to you and arranged across the full width of the meat, with all of the scallions lying parallel to each other. Now fold the exposed edge of the meat over the scallions and roll up as tightly as you can without pushing out all the scallions. Use some butcher's twine to hold the roll together, wrapping it around the center and both ends. Set aside and repeat the technique to make the rest of your rolls.

Season the outsides of the rolls with a bit more salt and pepper and a drizzle of soy sauce and toasted sesame oil.

Heat a griddle or large frying pan on the stove until very hot. Add a small amount of vegetable oil, then the rolls. Sear very well on all sides - it shouldn't take more than a minute or two on each side - then remove to a plate or board to rest briefly. Drizzle on a bit more soy sauce and sesame oil if you like.

Use a sharp knife to slice each roll into three pieces, then cut away the butcher's twine. Serve standing on-end with your choice of condiments - teriyaki is pretty traditional, but I found I liked them best with some sweet and spicy asian-style chili sauce, while J preferred wasabi and sriracha (as pictured).



We made these into a meal with an incredibly simple stir fry of baby bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, onions and red bell peppers, seasoned with just some soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic and black pepper. This was shockingly good, and far more than the sum of its parts, much like the negimaki themselves.



Its a difficult thing to remember at times, but sometimes simple really is best.

Goodness, gracious, great balls o' meat!

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

The meatball is, I think, a vastly underrated thing. Most people think of meatballs as only those things you have with spaghetti and red sauce to make a meal more substantial, or perhaps as the little bite-sized morsels served with sweet-and-sour sauce at new year's eve, or in gloopy brown gravy over egg noodles that somehow get away with calling themselves "swedish". Usually made of beef and with far too few seasonings, quite often lacking pleasing texture or moisture, we're all familiar with the mediocrity of the standard meatball. But does that mean they can't be really, truly GOOD? I don't think so.

I also don't believe that meatballs should be relegated to the dishes above. Ground meat (or chop meat if you're from on Long Island or New Jersey, apparently... I haven't been a New Yorker long enough to hear that phrase without a certain confused tilt of the head) is endlessly versatile, refreshingly inexpensive, and usually quite tasty when its of high quality. When you start with a pound of ground meat - be it beef, pork, chicken, turkey, some sort of game, or a mix of two or three - the possibilities are practically infinite.

That's why last week we decided to devote an entire week of dinners to the humble, forgotten, oftimes-abused meatball. And 4 meals later, we've barely scratched the surface.

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Meal #1: Chicken Koftas Avgolemono

I know, I know, here we go again. But hear me out. This was my brainchild, being still enamoured with the Avgolemono Soup from a month or so back and craving those flavors again, but wanting to mix it up a bit. I knew when we decided on this meatball week experiment that I'd want to do something Greek, and this dish sort of just tumbled out on a whim. Apparently the idea had merit, because J declared it a definite addition to our future dream restaurant menu.



From Wikipedia:

"Kofta ... is a Southeastern European, Middle Eastern and South Asian meatball or dumpling.

In the simplest form, koftas consist of balls of minced or ground meat — usually beef or lamb — mixed with spices and/or onions. The vegetarian varieties like lauki kofta, shahi aloo kofta, and malai kofta are popular in India, as is kofta made of minced goat meat." More...

Traditional beef or lamb koftas (often made in cigar shapes rather than spherical ones) are delicious in their own right, and deserve a post of their own later this year when the weather gets warmer and we can grill them properly. But for this meal, to remain faithful to the original Avgolemono that was my inspiration, I knew that chicken would be the proper choice.

Each of the components of this dish are simple, but as there are several the prep was a bit time-consuming. First, the meatballs were made with ground chicken that was seasoned with oregano, garlic, lemon zest, crumbed feta, a tiny drizzle of honey and a goodly amount of salt and black pepper. We use the Alton Brown method for cooking, and a pound of chicken yielded a dozen two- or three-bite koftas. While those baked away, I boiled some orzo in chicken stock fortified with a bay leaf and extra black pepper, prepped some baby spinach, carrots, garlic and onions for the sautee pan, and whisked the juice of a lemon into an egg in preparation for the sauce.

The carrots, garlic, and onions were sauteed until just softened, then the spinach was added and cooked until it just started to wilt. By this time the orzo was done, and I drained off the remaining stock in the pan into a bowl to use for the sauce. Finally, when the meatballs were done and resting out of the oven for a few minutes, I made the sauce by adding the hot stock to the lemon-egg mixture slowly, whisking constantly to temper the egg, then heating the mix gently on the stove to allow it to thicken.

To serve, a bed of orzo was laid down on each plate, topped by a generous helping of sauteed spinach, a trio of keftedes, and a few spoonfuls of sauce drizzled all over. Finish with a sprinkle of crumbled feta and some chopped fresh parsley, and you've got yourself a meal.



The flavor of this dish was outstanding, and the meal felt quite healthy with the lean chicken and good green spinach. I know that the sauce needs some work, as it never got to quite the consistency I wanted, and a few bits of egg curdled while it was cooking and needed to be strained out before serving. I think with some tweaks here and there and a good reliable recipe (next time, I'll write it down), J is right - this just might have a place on the menu if we are ever able to open the little cafe we dream about.

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Meal #2 - Almond-crusted Asian Meatballs with Vegetable Stir Fry

Think of these as dumplings without the wrappers and a with a bit more attitude. We've made similar things before with sesame seeds that have come out terrific, but I'm a bit of an almond fanatic so when J suggested the almond crust as something different, I was hardly going to argue.



The meatballs were made with a mix of pork and beef and seasoned with soy garlic, onion, ginger, dry mustard, sesame oil, and a bit of sugar. Before dropping them into their individual muffin cups to bake, each ball got rolled around in some finely-chopped toasted slivered almonds to make a crust. Word to the wise - although the meatballs might seem rather fragile when you're working with them, you really want to press the almonds in there so that they stick. J made these and found that when he tried to be more gentle on the meatballs, the almonds all fell off as they cooked - where they'd been pressed more firmly into the meat, they seemed to adhere and get nice and crunchy as we'd imagined they would.



We ate these with a simple stir fry of sugar snap peas, carrots, green bell peppers, and onions in a basic sweet-and-salty brown sauce, which is hard to screw up and always tasty. The meatballs themselves were tasty but seemed a bit on the bland side - next time we'll up the seasonings by at least half. And my previous comments about the almond-crust aside, the bites were the almonds really got attached to the meat and got super golden-brown and crunchy were absolutely delicious and had great textural contrast. If we can get the crusting technique down next time, I think they'd be insanely good. I'd hate to suggest that they could replace J's current signature Asian meatballs for a party appetizer but, well, I think they could.

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Meal #3: Curried Turkey Meatballs with Chana Masala

I've been looking for an excuse to make my new favorite chana masala recipe recently, so when J suggested an Indian-style meatball I jumped at the chance. Turkey may seem like an odd match for curry seasoning, but really, it works. Its distinctive earthy flavor was a really good base for all those aromatic spices.



J made these as well, using his own homemade curry powder blend as the main seasoning base and adding a bit of garam masala, sugar, and extra salt and pepper to round out the flavor. Nothing fancy in the cooking step here, just form and drop into the muffin tin to bake, so they were especially easy. I made the chana masala almost exactly the same way as last time, but upped the veggie quotient with some cubed zucchini in place of the potatoes, and it was just as good as I remembered.

This was definitely another winner. The best part was scooping up a bite of chana masala with my fork and spearing a piece of meatball on the end and eating it all together - the meatballs may have tended a bit toward the dry side, so the moisture from the tomatoes and onions and squash really improved the texture, and all of those great Indian spices blending together made for an intense explosion of flavor unlike anything in Western cooking. Quite exciting, really, for a weeknight dinner.

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Meal #4: Italian Sausage Ball Pizza

I don't actually have any photos of this one, which is a shame because it was really, really good. Like, almost I-can't-believe-I-made-this good. But, well, because it was so good, we ate it before it even occurred to me to take pictures.

I decided that if we were making meatballs all week, we really ought to do something Italian. But I wasn't about to make spaghetti and meatballs - as a matter of fact, I didn't want regular meatballs at all. But SAUSAGE balls, now that I could get behind. But we didn't just buy sausage - we made it, fresh, from just some ground pork and spices.

Bet you didn't know it was that easy, did you? Well, it is.

A pound of ground pork mixed up with a generous amount of garlic, onion, black pepper, salt, and most importantly, fennel (we used fennel pollen because we didn't have any whole seed, and since we were making the sausage mix the day of rather than ahead of time, it would ensure a more pervasive fennel flavor) created a pretty authentic-tasting Italian-style sweet sausage. The mix was formed into slightly flattened balls and seared in a pan this time around, then sliced to make a more easily distributed pizza topping.

The pizza itself was built on some whole wheat dough I'd been saving in the freezer, starting with a thin layer of J's homemade marinara, a sprinkle of shredded mozzarella, some pieces of brie, and the sliced sausage. Into the oven on the pizza stone at the highest heat we could get for maybe 5-10 minutes, and we had a bubbly, melty pizza with a golden brown crust.

The sausage was perfect here, with just the right amount of savory spice. The creamy brie and mozz complimented it really well, and although the crust was more chewy than crispy, the whole wheat flour gave it a pleasing texture. And with the dough made ahead of time, we were able to make the whole meal in about 25 minutes. Can't really beat that!

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We have one more meal planned that we never got around to making, which we have high hopes for - venison meatballs in cherry sauce. If it comes out as good as I expect it will, I'll be sure to share it with you. But in the meantime, I highly recommend that you give the lowly meatball a bit of thought, and a chance to elevate itself beyond that boring plate of pasta. Its a blank slate upon which fantastic meals can be built, and deserves a second chance at your table.

SSD: The Standard Steak Dinner (TM)

Ok, so its not really a trademarked name. At least, I don't think it is. But believe me, it should be, because a steak dinner just doesn't get any more tasty, classic, or all around RIGHT than this. And once you've tried this, I can almost guarantee you'll agree with me.

The SSD is the only original meal that we've come up with in our almost 4 years of cooking together that we've consistently gone back to several times a year, and have never really had to change. Its part recipe, part formula, and all delicious.



The recipe part of it that never, ever changes is my original sherry steak gravy. "Gravy" is a bit of a misnomer here; there is very little about this recipe that resembles your standard brown, smooth, thick sauce that is usually served with roast beef or turkey. Instead, it is coarse and rustic with diced onion, garlic, mushrooms, and a goodly amount of bacon, with the gravy part being more of binder than anything else. It is sweet, savory, and peppery, a perfect companion for a thick, medium-rare steak, and I've barely changed the recipe since I made it the first time nearly 3 years ago.

The rest of the meal is just a simple formula, wherein the components follow a theme but are easily substituted and adjusted to achieve the same general result without getting old or tired. This formula is incredibly classic: a good cut of steak, simply seasoned with kosher salt and black pepper; a green vegetable; a potato dish. But I'm a big believer in the philosophy that if a thing ain't broke, you shouldn't try to fix it.



The beauty of it is the wide range of options available for each component. You could use a sirloin steak, or a ribe eye (as we did here) or even a filet. You could sautee up some broccoli or spinach or steam some snow peas, any of which could follow your particular favorite side dish recipe. And we all know how versatile potatoes are. Want a mash? Go for it. Scalloped potatoes your thing? We've done that too. Baked and stuffed? Roasted? Hashed? They all work. There's really just no way to break this meal.

But the sherry gravy is what ties everything together, each and every time. And we have never made this meal without feeling completely and utterly satisfied when our plates are clean.



We made an SSD earlier this week, upon realizing that it'd been several months since we last did so. This time around we used some well-marbled rib eyes for the steak, and combined the potato and green veg by roasting some cubed red potatoes and halved brussels sprouts together. And incidentally, if you think you don't like brussels sprouts, I absolutely recommend that you try them this way. I first discovered them last fall, having never actually tried them before and therefor being devoid of any of the normal negative connotations that most people have. And at first taste, I loved them. Slightly sweet and tender-crisp when cooked correctly, I often find myself craving them when the weather gets cool. And when they are roasted this way, their natural sugars concentrate and caramelize on the outside, much the way carrots or sweet potatoes do, and they become positively candy-like. Seriously, just try these. They aren't your parents' sprouts.

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Eri's Sherry Steak "Gravy"

I have always used white button mushrooms in this recipe, because I like their texture and mild flavor. However, I recommend that you use whatever variety of mushroom that you prefer - I am sure it would be equally good with portobellos, creminis, or shiitakes. I'd even like to try this with porcinis... sometime when I don't mind potentially breaking a recipe that has been so completely foolproof for so long.

This recipe makes enough "gravy" to top two average-sized steaks.

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 a white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 slices fatty bacon, chopped
1/2 cup diced white button mushrooms
1 tsp black pepper (Believe it or not, I use preground pepper for this because the first time I made it, we didn't have a pepper grinder, and I haven't wanted to change the finished product. Feel free to fresh-grind your pepper, though I might suggest cutting back a bit as fresh-ground pepper is significantly stronger.)
1/2 cup strong beef stock (and I mean STRONG. I've always made this with beef stock cubes, using twice as much as the package directs for the amount of water. You could also use a demi glace, or homemade stock that you boil down to half-volume.)
1/4 cup sherry (the real stuff. Don't go using "cooking wine" in this recipe.)
1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp cornstarch (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a small sautee pan (not nostick) over medium heat until gently shimmering. Add the bacon and cook slowly to render out as much of the bacon fat as possible into the pan. When the bacon is about half cooked, add in the onions, garlic, and mushrooms, and sautee until everything is softened and the onions are translucent.



Crank up the heat to high for a few minutes to achieve some slight caramelization on the veg and develop a bit of fond (stuck on brown bits) on the bottom of the pan. Deglaze the pan with the sherry, then add the stock, worcestershire, pepper and brown sugar. Turn the heat down again to medium-low and simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture thickens slightly and about half the liquid has boiled away. At this point, if you like a thinner gravy, you could use the gravy as-is. Or, you could thicken it by placing the cornstarch in a bowl, adding a couple spoonfuls of water or gravy liquid and stirring to dissolve, then adding the mixture back to the pan and stirring to combine. This will create a thick, velvety sauce to bind all the ingredients together.

Spoon the gravy over your choice of steak and serve hot.

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Roasted Red Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts

This was the first time I've successfully achieved the crisp outside, fluffy inside roasted potatoes that most people dream about. I think that the pre-cooking step, the generous amount of olive oil, and the high heat in the oven were what make it work, and for once they were totally perfect. I didn't measure anything or keep track of time while I was doing this, however, so I'm making some guesses here. I will be retrying this method tomorrow when we have some friends over for dinner, so I will try to pay more attention and nail down this recipe.



2-3 large red potatoes, washed and cut into one-inch cubes
1 cup brussels sprouts, stems trimmed, outer leaves removed, and halved
4 cups water
2 tbsp + 1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp fresh-cracked black pepper
2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp good balsamic vinegar

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Pour the water into a saucepan and add the 2tbsp salt and cubed potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are about half-cooked, probably about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk together the olive oil, 1 tbsp salt, black pepper and garlic in a medium-sized bowl.

When the potatoes have reached the desired level of doneness, remove with a slotted spoon to the baking sheet and allow to dry and cool slightly for 2-3 minutes.
Add the trimmed and halved brussels sprouts to the pan of boiling water to blanch for 2-3 minutes, or until bright green and slightly softened.

Once the sprouts are in the water, pour half of the seasoned olive oil over the potatoes on the baking sheet and toss with your hands until the potatoes are covered, then place the sheet in the oven. They will need at least 10-15 minutes on their own before you add the brussels sprouts.

Drain the blanched sprouts and add, while still hot, to the bowl with the remaining seasoned olive oil. Add the balsamic vinegar and toss gently to coat.

Remove the pan with the potatoes from the oven and flip gently with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula - you'll notice that the parts touching the baking sheet will be the most golden browned and crispy. You'll want to flip them like this over the course of their cooking time to ensure that all sides get evenly browned.

Add the brussels sprouts with their marinade to the baking sheet and spread out so that all the sprouts and potatoes are in a single layer. Return to the oven and continue to bake, turning every 5 minutes or so, until everything is nicely browned and crispy on the outside. For me, this took approximately 15-20 minutes. When they are done, remove from the oven and hit with a last sprinkle of kosher salt and black pepper while they are hot. Serve immediately so that they retain their crispness.

Halloween!

So I have to apologize for disappearing a bit recently - I felt like I was sort of on a roll with posting regularly and all, but things sort of got off track for awhile.

There are good reasons for this. To begin with, I was sick with some as-yet-undefined infection somewhere in my head for about two weeks, which left me dizzy and light-headed and wanting to do nothing but perform my best imitation of a lump on the couch. The last thing I felt like doing was photographing our meals and then writing about them. Of course this was almost a moot point anyway, because for those same two weeks or so we were basically on a liquid diet, eating nothing but soup, in an attempt to eat a bit more cheaply and healthily for awhile. Everything we made was quite tasty, but little of it felt blog-worthy. (Though our last meal in the Great Soup Extravaganza of 2008 was actually extremely good and quite pretty, so that's high on my list of to-blog meals right now.)

Then, there was work, which has been kicking my rear for about a month now. My staff and I just launched a major marketing campaign this past week, and the days leading up to D-Day were crazy-busy, to put it lightly. And as I'm sure many of you can understand, after days like that its all I can do to help J with a simple meal and then veg for the rest of the night.

However, I'm finally feeling better, we're back to a semi-normal cooking routine, and I think I'm through the worst at work, for now anyway, so I'm ready to start posting again. I've got a couple of things lined up, and with this month's Barefoot Bloggers recipes on their way and Thanksgiving just around the corner, I think there will be plenty to talk about in the coming weeks.

Right now, though, I'd like to tell you about our Halloween party.

Throwing parties is something that J and I seem to excel in, if you'll pardon my boasting. We love to entertain, and have parties at least 4 or 5 times a year for various occasions (holidays, birthdays, etc.) We plan a bunch of finger foods and appetizers to serve, ask our friends to bring beverages (usually beer, and soda for non-drinkers), put together a playlist on iTunes, and voila! Instant party.

Well, not exactly instant - our parties usually require at least a week of gradual prep-work since they are always so food-centric. But its work we enjoy, and its fun seeing a party slowly come together in the days leading up to the event.

Halloween is probably the one occasion that, among our group of friends, absolutely REQUIRES a party. Its a tradition that started five years ago, when I was living in Queens with three friends after my graduation from college. I think it was the first party we threw together, and it was such a phenomenal success that we've just kept it going ever since. Its the one party that everyone really loves because they get to dress up in costume and be a little uninhibited for awhile, and I think I can say with some degree of certainty that people especially love coming to our house because of the food.

That being said, although I don't feel like we made any more food this year than we normally do, we had a LOT of leftovers afterwards. For some reason, people just weren't eating as much as they normally do. We did try a different layout of our apartment for the party and arranged the food tables a bit differently than normal, so maybe we screwed something up there. Regardless though, we got nothing but compliments on everything.

If you'd like the recipe for any of these munchies, just request it in the comments and I'll be sure to add it to the post. And my apologies if some of these photos are a bit dark or oddly colored - it being Halloween and all, the lighting in the apartment was rather dim and atmospheric, which may be appropriate for a party but doesn't make for good photography.



The hot food table. This was a new development for this party, because I finally bit the bullet and bought one of these buffet-style chafing dishes, and we needed to setup an extra table in order to have room for everything.



Test tube soup shooters. Half are butternut squash, and half are roasted red pepper and tomato. I hate to admit that I got the idea for this from Rachel Ray but, well, I did. And its ok, because I thought they were terribly cute (and the soup, though mostly ignored by our guests, was tasty too). Plus, now we have test tubes to use for custom shots at future parties. I'm rather tickled by this possibility.

And yes, thats a big bowl of marinara in the foreground, which was the accompaniment for...



...bloody bones! A.k.a. shaped breadsticks made with herbed pizza dough, and marinara dipping sauce. Got this idea from some random Halloween recipes website, and used some pizza dough I'd kept in the freezer from one of our grilled pizza experiments. J made the marinara because he's the resident expert. These led to much hilarity as I beatedly realized that once you bite an end off, they end up looking rather more than a little suggestive. Oops!



In front, mummy dogs (pigs-in-a-blanket made by wrapping strips of dough around each cocktail weenie rather than rolling them in crescent rolls) and a handful of herbed pretzels made with the excess dough for the piggies. In back, our famous Asian meatballs with sweet sesame glaze. I think these were one of the first recipes we developed all on our own and served at a party, with J creating the meatballs and me creating the glaze, way back when we first moved in together. We've been making them for almost every party ever since because people just go nuts over them. Oddly enough, we ended up having quite a few extra at the end of the party, but since J made almost 5 dozen of them I guess that's not really that surprising.



Cold food table number 1. There was a simple vodka punch in the cauldron (we fit a punch bowl inside for a pretty neat fakeout effect) made with two 2L bottles of sprite, lemon and mango sorbets, and 2/3 of a bottle of Stoli citrus - this stuff is sweet and hardly tastes alcoholic, so drinkers beware! Its very easy to have a few too many glasses and suddenly realize you cant quite walk a straight line. Needless to say, it disappeared.

In the foreground are some mini pumpkin spice muffins, and my good friend Cristen's signature dark chocolate truffles, made this time around with caramel ganache and fleur de sel. I always ask her to bring truffles to our parties - she's brilliant with them and, well, I'm chocolate-challenged and have yet to make anything even resembling a decent batch.



Also on this table, a plate of antipasto - an olive mix and some marinated mushrooms from Iavarone (I absolutely drool over their mushrooms - I buy containers of them on an almost weekly basis just to snack on), some quick-marinated artichoke hearts that I made that day (in the back of the photo where you can't really see them), store-bought dill cornichons and some of my home-pickled bread and butter slices. Remind me to share the recipe for those at a later date - they are the best I've ever made and, according to J and several of our guests, the best they'd ever tasted. In the middle is a bowl of toasted pumpkin seeds, salvaged from the pumpkins I carved the night before. I followed Elise's method on Simply Recipes and found they came out far better than the ones I remember my mom making as a kid. They disappeared like crazy, so its a good thing I kept some back for myself for later!



Cold food table number 2, offering massive plates of cured sausage and cheese and vegetable crudite, a pate selection, and some sweets (including the requisite dish piled with Halloween candy). The sausage and cheese plate had 4 varieties of each: Iavarone's sweet soppresetta, hard salami, chorizo picante, and smoked andouille for the sausage; aged gouda, emmenthaler, sharp cheddar, and Prima Donna for the cheese. I made the little signs because the selection was a little unusual and I wanted to be sure people knew what they were eating. The crudite plate included grape tomatoes, broccoli florets, baby carrots, zucchini batons, red pepper slices, and celery sticks, and were paired with an easy homemade dip with lemon, dill, and garlic. We had the most leftovers from these two plates - luckily they were easily put to use in our meals the following week. I guess maybe we just got a little too complicated with them?



A selection of pates that we ordered from D'Artagnan and which, I'm sorry to say, we found a bit disappointing. Our previous experiences with pates have been mind-blowingly delicious, life-changing revelations of savory flavor and aroma, and these seemed bland in comparison. I guess maybe the ones we've had the pleasure of sampling in the past were just especially prime specimens, but D'Artagnan has such a good reputation I was really expecting something more. Unsurprisingly, very little of this was eaten, and we still have a lot left which I don't know how to use. They were paired with some whole grain crackers and crostini made from sourdough baguettes cut into 1/2" slices on the bias and toasted under the broiler with a generous brushing of olive oil an a sprinkling of kosher salt and fresh-cracked pepper.



Bite-sized sugar cookie cutouts glazed with colored royal icing. I am rather in love with these little cookies, despite the amount of time it took to make them. Have you ever tried to frost 6 dozen tiny cookies? Its a lot of work. We still have some left and I've been having a couple for dessert every day - they're just sugary enough with a fragrant touch of almond extract, and the perfect size for a little sweet ending to a meal.



I know, not food. But, this is the first jack-o-lantern I've made in probably 4 years, and I was awfully proud of it. I can't figure out if he looks cheerful or menacing!

And just for fun, here's the group before everyone got tired of wearing their costumes and changed into street clothes.



Is it weird that I think this is the best picture taken of me in ages? And fyi, that's J in the background in the Guy Fawkes mask. He made a good V, but I'm really creeped out by masks so I'm glad he didn't keep it on long. (And I am still amazed by Cristen's geisha costume. She looked incredible!)

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!

Sometimes Life Demands German Comfort Food

Working in a university, you start to measure your life in semester-length increments. You learn that the from summer into early fall, the time of year when most people are busy relaxing and doing nothing, you'll be tearing your hair out trying to keep dozens of meetings straight and finishing all your big projects before The Day The Kids Come Back.

Summer at a university is not the time for taking it easy; its the time for getting all the work done that you can't do during the year when the students and faculty are around to occupy your time.

And THEN, the fateful day arrives and the new academic year begins, and suddenly everyone on campus has taken a renewed interest in the services you're there to offer, and if you thought things were busy in the three months previous you've got NO idea, brother. In a week's time, I think I had more meetings and new project requests than I'd had all summer.

Think about that for a second, and you'll understand why by last Thursday I needed fried veal and potato soup for dinner.



J, being of almost entirely German heritage, has an understandable devotion to Eastern European fare. Unfortunately, since most of the German foods he (and I) love basically consist of meat, potatoes, and cabbage, usually with a fair amount of fat thrown in for good measure, we don't cook it very often. But Iavarone had some lovely little thin veal cutlets over the weekend and J was inspired to put a couple of German meals on the menu for the week. Luckily for me, it just happened to work out that we had both meals on days when I really, really needed them.

The weekend previous I made a batch of homemade pierogi stuffed with potato and onion and froze them, so that on Monday, when I came home at 9pm after a long work day follows by a two-hour chorus rehearsal, J greeted me with a hug and a kiss and a steaming plate of kielbasa, sauerkraut, and pan-fried pierogi. *swoon* Be still my heart... there is nothing sexier than a man who'll cook for me.

Then on Thursday, when I had 4 excrutiatingly long days behind me but still one more to go and was feeling about as tired as I've felt in months, J made wienerschnitzel with mushroom gravy and I made creamy potato soup with broccolini and caraway and a spoonful of crispy diced kielbasa on top, and all of a sudden things seemed a whole lot better.



Potato-Broccolini Soup with Kielbasa and Caraway

1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
1 bunch broccolini, cut into 1/4-1/2" pieces
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 cup diced white onion
3 cups chicken stock
1 tsp caraway seed
1 tsp spicy brown mustard (I used Boar's Head because its what we had, but would have preferred something grainier)
1 tbsp creme fraiche
1/2 cup diced kielbasa
2 tbsp butter
S&P to taste

Melt 1 tbsp butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sautee until slightly softened and translucent, but not browned. Add potatoes, broccolini (reserving about 1/4 cup), and caraway seed and sautee for a minute or two just to get things up to temperature. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes and broccolini are soft enough to mash with a fork.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining tbsp of butter in a small sautee pan and add the kielbasa and remaining broccolini. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sausage and veg are heated through and slightly browned and crispy on the outside. Remove from heat and set aside.

When the veg in the soup is smashably-tender, remove from the heat and add the mustard and creme fraiche, stirring to combine evenly. At this point you could serve the soup as is, but I chose to put my trusty immersion blender to work and whizzed everything up until it was velvety smooth. Not that I have anything against chunky soup, but this had the added benefit of pureeing the caraway along with the veg, making for a more consistent flavor. You could grind the caraway before adding to the pot if you wanted to get around that but still have a chunky soup, but I'm frankly too lazy for that mess.

To serve, ladle into bowls and gently top with a big spoonful of the crisped kielbasa and broccolini. Enjoy while still hot, preferably with a big hunk of dark pumpernickel bread or a plate of your favorite German dish. Like wienerschnitzel, especially if its cooked by someone as inarguably German as J.

Pairing this with a glass of riesling or a gin and tonic (preferably something good like Tangueray) is just gilding the lily... I'm quite a fan of gilded lilies, myself.

How to Say Goodbye to Summer

I don't know what things are like in your neck of the woods, but around here summer has been quietly fading away into the amber chill of autumn, and its all I can do not to jump and cheer out loud because MAN have I had enough of heat and humidity. I'd nearly forgotten what its like to actually sleep comfortably at night. And with a blanket! Truly, my friends, a delicious luxury.

But despite being overjoyed at the slow return of golden days and crisp blue skies, long-sleeved shirts and pumpkins in the markets, I will admit a lingering sadness that all the summer cooking and eating that I love dearly are going away for another year.

The transition from summer to fall is always a bit difficult to navigate for me - I'm so totally ready for soups and braises and long-roasted hunks of meat, but I'm not quite ready to give up the grill. I haven't had enough corn and tomatoes yet! And I've only JUST made my first batch of pickles. And its getting colder by the day.

So, over the last two weeks (when I've been embarrassingly absent from this blog) J and I have been milking what's left of summer for all its worth and enjoying lots of warm-weather foods for probably the last time this season. Maybe in another week or so I'll be ready to say farewell to summer, and at least I'll have the memories of these dishes to carry me through until May.

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Roasted Chicken Thighs with Summer Corn Salad

Yes, yes, perhaps I'm playing out the chicken thigh thing, but seriously, if you were able to get consistently fresh, juicy, BIG chicken thighs for less than $3 a pair, wouldn't you get a little bit obsessed?



This was, until this past weekend, the best chicken that J or I had ever eaten, bar none. The preparation really wasn't all that different that this recipe with lemon and oregano, but we adjusted the cooking technique a bit by switching the oven from bake to broil when the meat was still just slightly underdone, turning the thighs skin side up and moving them close to the heating element to crisp the hell out of the skin. And for once, it really worked! The skin was crisp almost to the point of shattering, and so incredibly flavorful from the lemony marinade and pre-cooking sprinkle of kosher salt. The meat beneath stayed moist and tender and intensely chicken-y, more so than any chicken we've ever cooked or eaten before. It was PERFECT. And of course, when we tried to do it again a week or so later, we failed. Eventually, I swear, we will learn to take notes and be consistent with our cooking. (In all seriousness, I hope that this blog will help with that, but its yet to be proven so we'll see.)

As good as the chicken was though, it was very nearly surpassed by summer corn and tomato salad we had as accompaniment. Making and eating this salad was a humbling lesson in simplicity - I tend to forget that sometimes, the most basic preparation is the best, and that when you have really good ingredients the only way to do them justice is to let their flavors shine all on their own. And that's what I did here.

Two ears of corn and one Italian green frying pepper went under the broiler for awhile to roast and blacken a bit, allowing the sugars in the corn to caramelize and the pepper to soften. Meanwhile I chopped up some red onion and halved some tiny sweet grape tomatoes and tossed them in a big bowl. When the pepper and corn were cool enough to handle, I peeled, deseeded, and chopped the pepper and shaved the kernels off the cobs, and tossed them in with the tomatoes and onions. Add a dash of red wine vinegar, a splash of good olive oil, a pinch each of sugar and kosher salt, and a few cracks of black pepper, and combine.

That's it.

Seriously, trust me on this. If you've never had corn cooked this way, you'll be amazed at how much sweeter and, well, more like corn it will taste. Fresh corn turns into sweet, tender gold when it gets hit by some dry heat, and combined with the sharply pungent red onions, fruity and juicy tomatoes, and slightly bitter roasted peppers, you end up with a salad that is beautifully balanced in both taste and texture, and truly beautiful on the plate in its yellow, red, and green glory. The dressing here is mostly just a binder and a flavor enhancer - you shouldn't really notice it on its own, but it should complement all the other flavors that are going on. We've made corn salads and salsas before, but never one as good as this. I'll be coming back to it next year, for sure.

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Grilled Curry-spiced Pork Tenderloin with Chana Masala

There isn't really much to tell about this meal except that it was almost shockingly good. The pork was brined overnight, then rubbed with J's homemade curry spice mixture and grilled until just cooked through and blacked a bit on the outside. The Chana Masala was made using the recipe on Orangette almost verbatim, though I halved the recipe and added in some potatoes, and it was absolutely perfect - buttery chickpeas, velvety potatoes, sweet-tart tomatoes, and just the right amount of spice (so many of the Indian recipes I've tried have just been so heavily spiced that I couldn't really enjoy them). That recipe is going in our tried-and-true collection. Thanks Molly, for posting it, and thanks to Brandon for coming up with it!



Incidentally, though the grilling made this pretty summery for me, I think I can say with a fair amount of reliability that we'll be repeating this meal in the fall and winter - the chana masala is so hearty, and the pork can just be cooked in the oven. Because really, who doesn't love a hunk of roasted pork when the weather's cold?

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Surf-n-Turf with Grilled Portobello and Mixed Greens

We gave the grilled surf-n-turf another go, and it came out much better this time. The shrimp were grilled on skewers rather than in a pouch, and were still slightly overdone but miles better than the last attempt, and the steak was cooked to somewhere between medium-rare and medium. Still a bit overcooked for my tastes, and to tell the truth it just wasn't a great cut of steak so it as still a bit tough, but it certainly tasted good. And the salad was an easy-peasy success, made up of some washed spring mix, thinly sliced red onions, a couple grilled and sliced portobello caps, some shaved parmesan and a drizzle each of fruity EVOO and aged balsamic. Fresh and tasty, for sure, and look how colorful!



(This was also the first meal I photographed with my new set-up, so I just had to share!)

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Masala Burgers with Fresh Mango and Sweet Potato & Pea Salad

This was one of those hugely dichotomous meals where one part was made of total win, and the other was a nearly dismal failure. In this case, the garam-masala-spiced burgers with fresh mango? Delicious. Almost tropical with their blend of spicy and sweet, and an extra little twang from a squeeze of fresh lime juice and a hint of richness from a drizzle of curry aioli. I could've eaten those burgers for a week straight.

The salad, however? Not so much. It seemed like a great idea: sweet potatoes go great with both tropical and Indian flavors, and potato salad is a classic pairing for a burger, and we could even grill the potatoes at the same time as the burgers - thus, the curried sweet potato salad was born. The peas were sort of a last minute addition, in an effort to get a green vegetable onto our dinner plates, but I reasoned that peas are pretty common in curries as well, and their natural sweetness ought to complement that of the sweet potatoes. It all made perfect sense. Right?

Well, apparently not. I'm not even sure I can pinpoint where it went wrong, though I'm pretty sure the dressing had a lot to do with it - I was hoping for a light, saffron-scented dressing with a bit of Indian spice for warmth and lime juice for brightness, but what I ended up with was an oddly-colored concoction that didn't really taste strongly of anything you could pick out and tasted disturbingly milky to me because I used some creme fraiche in place of part of the usual mayo.

Even with the less-than-stellar dressing, it might have been alright had the sweet potatoes had any flavor of their own to speak of, but they were oddly bland despite having been seasoned and grilled.

I barely ate any of mine (though that was partially due to a minor allergic reaction that I sometimes get with curried foods). J ate his with enthusiasm and said he really liked it, but then the extras that got shoved in the fridge sat there for a week until they finally needed to be thrown out, so I'm guessing he didn't like it as much as he claimed. Ah well. You can't win 'em all, right?

Lessons Learned

I've been a little absent from the blogosphere this week. I'm sorry. Its way too early in the game here at "Table for Two?" for me to disappear for 6 days straight, and I apologize. I'll try not to let it happen again but, well, you know how it is. Life gets in the way sometimes.

That being said, there are a couple of legitimate reasons for my neglect. The first is that the Olympics started last Friday, and I've been watching them just about every night. I've been looking forward to the games for months, and there's been some really great stuff going on this year (Michael Phelps, anyone?) and I just don't want to miss a minute of it if I can avoid it.

The second is that we naively planned a couple of positively epic meals this week, and when we spend 2-3 hours making dinner after a full day of work, its all I can do to sit in front of the boob tube for an hour or so of Olympics coverage afterwards before passing out for the night.

This week did, however, yield quite a few valuable learning experiences which I'd like to pass on.

Mmmm. Melty Mexican goodness.

Lesson #1
Enchilada sauce, or red chili sauce, is shockingly easy to make at home, and tastes SO much better than the canned, store-bought variety that I've always used. J actually made the sauce this first time around, and although he used Emeril's recipe as a jumping-off point, he changed enough as he went along to render the original probably nearly unrecognizable. The end result? Pretty much what I would consider the perfect enchilada sauce: rich, savory, and tangy, with just a bit of warmth from some dried chilis. Poured under and over whole grain tortillas wrapped around smoked pulled pork and black beans, it yielded what J called "the best enchiladas EVAR" but I'll leave the details for a separate post.

Lesson #2
Cleaning your own squid is an absolutely monstrous job, and not at all pleasant. More importantly, its a hell of an undertaking for a weeknight. I don't think we ate dinner until after 9pm that night, and when you're used to eating dinner closer to 7:30pm, that is a seriously late meal.

I volunteered to do the squid-cleaning first, and I have to admit that my knee-jerk revulsion to handling shellfish innards (and having my fingers anywhere near a dead creatures eyes) lessened significantly after the first 2 or 3. I managed to get through about 8 before deciding I'd had enough, and passing the torch to J to finish up. Of course that meant he ended up doing almost twice as many as I did (the package we bought had a shockingly large number of whole squid in it) but he was graciously silent about the clearly unfair division of labor. I think I owe him a 6-pack or something for that.

We cleaned out all the bodies (or tubes) so that we could stuff them with a mixture of veggies and breadcrumbs, then bake them in a basic tomato sauce. The tentacles ended up getting discarded because, frankly, they just didn't look that good after being frozen and thawed. But of course, what you really want to know is, was it worth it?

No. Not at all. Never mind the fact that the plate of food up there will never win any beauty awards. It just didn't taste that good. The sauce and the stuffing, taken individually, were delicious. And being that we based it on one of Mario Batali's recipes, I'm not surprised. But the squid itself? Meh. Not impressed. I do think it was cooked just about right, as the finished product had a texture somewhat like al dente pasta. However, I'm used to squid being relatively non-fishy, and this was definitely fishy. I'm not sure if that's because it had been frozen whole and then thawed, or if we just didn't do a thorough-enough job of cleaning it (I suspect the latter, because some pieces were significantly more fishy than others) but quite frankly, I couldn't finish it. It was dsappointing, to say the least, and not something we'll be repeating anytime soon.

Now we've got a bag of about a dozen squid tubes in the freezer that we'll need to use up, though. I'm thinking we'll probably just fry them up at some point. Not anytime soon - I've got some mental scarring from this first fresh-squid encounter that needs to heal before I even look at it again - but eventually.

Lesson 3
Those little mini-springform pans I bought on my birthday are every bit as awesome as I expected them to be. I used them this week to make these delicious single-serving broccoli quiches, and they were really the perfect size for dinner when paired with some sauteed snow peas. The quiches rose in the oven and then held their form perfectly when removed from the pans, and were just perfectly cooked. I can't wait to find more uses for them.

Lesson 4
Sometimes, just sometimes, you want something simple. Something comforting. Something that fills your belly and warms your soul without breaking the bank. Something like... franks and beans. Or as J calls them, beanie weenies (*gigglesnort*). However, just because you're making a dish that your father made for you for dinner in grade school, doesn't mean you can't make it spectacular. We had this deceptively simple meal one night this week and made it amazing by making the baked beans from scratch, using dry beans that were soaked overnight and then cooked for a looooong time (over 12 hours) in the crock pot while we were at work. As a pleasant counterpoint to the squid fiasco, this made for a quick and easy dinner once we got home - all we had to do was crisp up the hot dogs a bit and then toast a couple of hot dog rolls in the rendered fat to have a supremely satisfying and surprisingly delicious dinner.

You know you want some of this. C'mon, don't try to hide it.

Even more surprising is that this particular dish was really not that bad for you - if you skip the bread-toasted-in-hot-dog-fat part, the franks and beans themselves have no added fat (helped along by that pre-cooking step with the dogs). There's a fair amount of sugar though, so diabetics may want to keep away from this sort of dish. The rest of you? Go get some beans soaking. Because I can guarantee there'll be a day this week when you won't want to cook, and this bowl of hot, hearty goodness is sure to soothe you after even the most difficult day.

Lesson 5
I still can't make fried rice. I tried my hand at a thai-style vegetarian fried rice on Thursday, and although it was basically ok, it just wasn't quite right. I'm pretty sure I overcooked the rice the night before, so it was a little too sticky and mushy when I tried to stir fry it, and fried rice just shouldn't be mushy, ever. I also think I used too much fish sauce in the seasoning, because the flavor was just a bit too prominent for me to really enjoy the dish. The basic premise was good, and the bites that got a piece of fresh tomato or pineapple were really delicious, but I couldn't quite finish my serving. J loved it, which I'm glad of, but I just know I could make it better if I could just get the rice part of it right.

Lesson 6
Rabbit is delicious. Also, "deconstructed" dishes are a ton of fun. But, I'll leave those details for my next post.

Bonus Lesson:
My photography SUCKS. Its virtually impossible to take decent photos in this dim-as-hell basement apartment. Normally I enjoy the gentle lighting we've got going on down here, but its not at all conducive to taking attractive photos of our dinners. I've really gotta work on that lightbox...